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The Art Of Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind Book Review

“The Art Of Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind” is another gem from this series of books.

Viz Media continues the life of art books for director Hayao Miyazaki’s films with “The Art Of Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind.”

The book kicks off with concept sketches by Miyazaki himself for the project that was originally titled “Warring States Demon Castle.” The vivid images of characters tend to mirror what we see in the final film. Next up is a series of tapestry images that are seen during the credits. The next section covers six locations featured in the film- The Sea of Decay, the Desert, the Valley of the Wind, the Bottom of the Sea of Decay, the city Pejite, and finally the Acid Lake. Through these sections, readers get cels, concept art (both by Miyazaki and artist Mitsuki Nakamura), film frames, designs, and storyboards. The images are a combination of profiles of characters (the titular hero and Kushana to name a couple), vehicles (like the gunship, Bumblecrow and Tolmekian tank), environments, scenes from the film, creatures like the Ohm, and weapons. For the most part, the story of the film is told through pictures via these six sections.

After the art portion of the book, we get a more text based section devoted to animation keywords and definitions, pieces about how certain special effects were achieved, camerawork techniques such as sliding and pans, and various aspects of image processing. The book closes out with a detailed and lengthy written piece titled “The Road To Nausicaä” from the Animage editorial division. The article covers the journey from the manga to the film and goes into everything from drawing work to the original proposal of Nausicaä as a special.

Having reviewed several of these art books now, it never ceases to amaze me how much more insight you get into the production of animated film through these books. Not only do you learn about the pre-production phase via the drawings, but there’s so much information about creating and compiling an animated feature. These art of books are truly an invaluable resource to artists, animators, Miyazaki enthusiasts or just fans of these art book releases. On top of that, it’s just a flat-out gift to be able to pour over hundreds of imaginative and breathtaking images from the mind of Miyazaki and the collaborative team responsible for the feature film of Nausicaä.

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